


Inglorious Zanzibarstards

by Fly



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Fleshed-Out Minor Character, M/M, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Missionfic, Multichapter, Overly Ambitious, PTSD, Plotty, Rips Off Every Spaghetti Western You Have Ever Seen, Treasure Hunt, War Story, Worldbuilding, Worst Giftfic Ever, Zanzibar Land
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fly/pseuds/Fly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's February, 2000, two months after the Zanzibar Land crisis, and the nation is now dissolving into a Second Mercenary War. Snake, needing money for his retirement, returns to the dying country to fight, but finds his loyalties becoming increasingly complicated. Faintly inspired by various Spaghetti Western and Macaroni Combat movies, and not tremendously much by the original prompt, which read "Snake/Miller, Alaska period".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. il buono

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://technophile.livejournal.com/profile)[**technophile**](http://technophile.livejournal.com/) for betaing and [](http://maspalio.livejournal.com/profile)[**maspalio**](http://maspalio.livejournal.com/) for the French.

I entered Galena Air Force Base on Christmas Day 1999, and I left on Boxing Day. I didn't bring anything except the uniform and undersuit I was already wearing, and a FOX-HOUND formal coat which was creased from being personally shipped over by the Colonel for the sake of my photos. It blew around me in the Alaskan wind. The other personnel noticed me, saluted me, got out of my way. The only one who didn't was Charlie.

He was standing with his hand on the Sikorsky, brushing snow off its flank, squinting into the colourless night sky as if it was the home he wanted to return to. My home was elsewhere, and right now, I had no choice but to go back there myself.

I asked him if he wanted to work for me, gave him a minute to think about it, and then ducked into the chopper. He lingered at its side for a while, but eventually settled into the cockpit. We took off, and I watched as the ugliness of Galena melted into the purity of the Alaskan wilderness, the beauty of the lakes, the sky filled with as many stars as flakes of snow.

At the time, I'd just been on a mission. My mind was still soft, malleable. Alaska was the mould. I didn't realise what had happened to me until my nightmares became frozen over with permafrost.

 

 

The Colonel first contacted me as I was in the back of the armoured vehicle crossing over the mountain range towards the North-West of Zanzibar Land. I was leaning against the inside wall, right hand flat against the smooth surface, watching the double doors rattle on their hinges each time the treads skipped on the rough terrain. When the buzzing started in my earpiece I made no motion to answer it. I wouldn't have done at all if Charlie hadn't twisted his head over the driver's partition and yelled at me to pick it up.

"Why should I?" I told him. "You're the only one who knows my frequency. If it's a mistake, then answering the call could give our location away to the enemy."

Charlie extended his left arm backwards, his palm towards the ceiling and his fingers slightly curved. It was the gesture I knew meant he wanted me to pass him a cigarette. Ignoring the constant buzzing, I took out my packet, drew one out, lit it, and passed it over. He pulled on it gratefully, and returned to driving.

The caller still hadn't hung up. Sometimes it's a pity radios don't have answering machines.

"Sounds like they're pretty desperate for an answer," Charlie said. "You know, you've got your radio turned up too loud. I can hear it ringing over here in the front. But if they're desperate, that means they might be giving away crucial information." He steered carefully around an outcrop, and I heard the scrape as the rock bit against the metal under my hand.

"Maybe they're just lonely."

"They'd need to be to want to talk to you."

I smiled at that, and started to take the plastic earbud out of my ear. It carried on shrieking between my fingertips, tinny and persistent.

"If it is the enemy," Charlie suggested, "and they give away important information, then maybe that could be a nice windfall."

"You're proposing blackmail?"

Charlie's mouth opened, but he didn't respond. The earpiece vibrated against my fingertips.

"My only goal is to further your retirement fund, boss," he eventually said, before turning back around to face the rocky path that passed as a road in this region of the country. This area was all rural, and the ways were designed for horses, not anything wide or heavy enough to have treads. It was a testament to Charlie's ability that we hadn't gone flying off a cliff edge yet.

The radio was still buzzing.

I hung the wire connected from the earpiece between my fingers, letting it swing back and forth like the world's most annoying pendulum. It was a little too eager for my attention to be a plain old wrong number, which left one thing – a cold call from a fan of mine.

My mouth suddenly felt dry.

Before I knew it, I was hooking the thing back up to my ear, and when it was secure, I took out the body of the transceiver and pushed the Answer switch.

At first, there was silence, just a shiver of radio snow. Then I heard a voice.

"Finally. Normally you're a lot more eager to answer my calls. Nothing distracting you, I hope?"

"Colonel," I snarled.

"It was the Colonel?" Charlie said, blocking out whatever it was that the Colonel was saying with the sound of his voice. I motioned at him for silence and turned around to face the doors at the back, sliding down the smooth inside wall until I was seated on the floor.

"- seems sinister. But there's no need to worry, Snake. I'm just calling to check up on you – to see how you are."

"You're not normally so concerned about me."

"That's a damning thing to say. After all, we're friends."

"Yeah, we are." I shifted. The floor of the vehicle was covered in debris and filth, and my thigh crunched into the twisted wreck of an old cigarette packet. "And that's how I know you well enough to be sure you're not just calling to say hello."

"How's Charlie, after you took him with you?"

Charlie was another ex-FOX-HOUND member like me. Unlike me, he was a Campbell-era monomaniac – he couldn't shoot a gun, but he could drive or fly or sail better than anyone else could. He was also a natural coordinator, and much better with people than I was, so he took care of all my mercenary contracts. On top of all of that, I liked him. He had been the pilot assigned to take me from Canada to Galena before the Christmas mission, and while I had spent that flight in silence, on the flight from Galena to Zanzibar Land the two of us ended up joking together like old friends.

I don't know if it was Charlie I liked, or the excuse. The excuse his very presence provided me; the one I couldn't find in Canada. But he was useful, and when I'd asked him to work for me, he hadn't resisted at all. Maybe I used my status as a weapon and my charms as an ex-CIA agent a little to get him to cooperate, but I've been trained to use whatever weapons I can find.

"He seems to be getting on fine," I replied, "not that I'd know."

I leaned back into the wall, scowling. I spotted a half-drunk can of ration coffee, long since cold, but still drinkable, if that's ever the word you'd use to describe ration coffee. I idly extended my hand towards it, but it was inches out of the reach of my fingertips.

"That's good to hear."

"I changed my frequency after the Christmas operation. How did you find my new one?"

"That transceiver uses FOX-HOUND private satellites to transmit signals. It's not difficult for a FOX-HOUNDer with sufficient security privileges to trace any signal and contact the device sending that signal."

FOX-HOUNDer. Hardly anyone used that phrase any more. The hostages in Outer Heaven had called Fox that, looking up at me with their grateful eyes. As soon as the story of what had happened there got out, everyone stopped using the old nickname; said it was bad luck. Maybe it had been for Fox, too.

"Just tell me why you're calling," I said.

"It's about the unit," the Colonel said. His voice, even relayed to my radio, sounded a little bitterer than usual – too much desperation sneaking in. "It's dying, Snake."

"I know that. It's been on its way out since after Outer Heaven." I made another grab for the coffee can. "Those defections and suicides amongst Big Boss's loyalists didn't do anyone's morale any good."

"When I assumed commanding position over the unit, I chose to reinvent it," the Colonel told me. "I wanted to discard Big Boss's old ideas, and build a new FOX-HOUND, one that he would never make himself, but one that he would be proud of. But all I did was sap the talent of new members and alienate veterans like Fox."

"Fox."

"These days, it's becoming clear to me that everything of himself Big Boss put into the unit was what held it together."

"What made you realise that now and not four years ago?"

"Miller's gone," Campbell said. "He left three weeks ago, not saying more than a few words to anyone. I can only hope he enjoys a peaceful retirement."

Miller. The old Hell Master. He was a teacher through and through – I couldn't imagine him living out a retirement peacefully with his family, if he even had one. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that he'd be doing something else that involved passing on what he knew.

"Give him good wishes from me. Anything else?"

"It made me consider retirement myself. Before I go the way Big Boss went."

"You'll have to work pretty hard to get there."

"I – I'm not supposed to tell you this, but between friends -"

"Go on, Colonel."

"There's a soldier, about your age, who was rescued from a POW camp in the Middle East the year before Outer Heaven. He applied to join FOX-HOUND as soon as he was released, and tested in the top percentile; but Big Boss personally vetoed the decision to allow him in, and out of respect to him I didn't reverse his decision."

"Why did Big Boss make it in the first place?"

"Apparently," the Colonel said, and then paused before continuing, "he just really took against him."

"For no reason?"

"None that I could see. I guess Big Boss just didn't like his face."

I rolled my eyes.

"Like I said, this was just before Outer Heaven, so he probably wasn't fully sane. Nonetheless, that soldier's making quite a name for himself in several PMCs and Black Ops groups. He's a marvel. They're calling him Big Boss's successor; his ideological 'son'. I've already sent him the offer. If he accepts, I'll retire and leave the unit in his hands. I really believe that he is the kind of person who could save it."

"You really believe FOX-HOUND is the kind of unit worth saving."

"Each leader of FOX-HOUND over the years has changed it to fit what their view of war is. Big Boss, myself... if he accepts my offer, he'll do exactly the same. There's really nothing left to lose. All we have left is a handful of men who would find better employment in a PMC, and you."

He paused. I guess he was giving me time to speak, but I couldn't think of anything to say.

"That's why I need you."

I accidentally knocked the can of coffee over with a sweep of my leg. It hurled black fluid over my pale brown BDUs.

"You need me for what? Colonel, I told you before – the nightmare's gone. I'm free – I'm a 'free' soldier. I'm retiring for good, and I'm not interested in coming back to FOX-HOUND."

"But you're all the unit has left."

"Forget it. I don't see why I should stay just to prolong the death throes of your worthless organisation."

"You need money."

"And, for that, who do I have to blame?" I snarled into the receiver, ignoring Charlie's worried look. "I'm not the one who decided paying money into my account would risk revealing my real name to spies."

"Snake, I know it's unjust, but you're a celebrity. There are many, many men and women who want to recruit you, and I know of a good few more who want to kill you. If you want a peaceful retirement, you'll have to forget about ever seeing that money."

I sighed. Money is money. By its very definition, it has a uniform value, one which you can make yourself the hard way if you miss out on the initial windfall.

"Done in by my own over-inflated paycheck."

"The money's gone now, anyway. It's been forwarded to that soldier I mentioned before, as an incentive. It should be more than enough money for him to start bringing in talent scouts when he rebuilds the unit."

"So better him than me."

"People don't want him dead. Your security is all I care about."

"I see," I told him. "Listen, Colonel, I enjoyed our little discussion, but do you want to hear what I think?"

"I already know," the Colonel said. "But tell me again."

"I think the unit's lost its value. War has changed. These days, all the best mercenaries aren't allied with PMCs; they're freelance, and under the employ of national armies."

"You'd know all about that."

That was what I was waiting for him to admit.

"So I was right," I snarled. I cupped my hand over the earpiece so I could hear every word of his protests. "You've been spying on me."

"A little of that, but also a little guesswork. Think of it as my attempt to keep in touch with an old friend."

"Is that the real reason you won't pay me? If you pay me and reveal my real name and identity to outsiders, you'll have competition next time you decide you want to outsource an infiltration mission to me." I slapped my hand against the floor of the vehicle. "Not to mention you'll be able to force me into cooperation with promises of payment. I know - " I let my voice drop, "I know I sound greedy even for a mercenary, but I need that money. If I had that money I could leave all that war and ugliness behind me, and maybe find some peace somewhere. It's the only thing tethering me to the battlefield."

"Not from the looks of the battlefield you chose."

"Zanzibar Land," I confirmed. "The Second Mercenary war. A territory scramble as Big Boss's mercenary nation dissolves without his leadership; and the source of the most lucrative and abundant mercenary jobs in the world. It's a golden age for soulless warmongers like us."

"Not to mention you already know the terrain, and you certainly made your mark there previously. Any side would be proud to have you." He paused. "According to the satellites, you're currently in Rassvet."

It occurred to me that it didn't make any sense to call the North-West of a country 'sunrise' in Russian. There was probably some other story to it that I didn't know.

"That's right."

"Snake?"

"Yeah?"

"Which side?"

"Colonel - "

"The satellite uplink is secure. You know you can trust me."

"Pakistan," I admitted.

"As good an army as any other."

"Yeah," I said. "That's why I let them hire me."

We both laughed at that, together.

"The aim's to clear out a Rassvet mass farming facility," I continued. "Russians slaughtered the civilian Zanye there, and took over. Meanwhile, the Zanye are considering an assault to reclaim it. It's important Pakistan clears out the Russians and claims the area before that happens, while resistance is low."

"Snake, you brought down Outer Heaven, and they're having you clean out a farm?"

"With all the mercenaries the nations are hiring, the armies are running out of equipment and money. It's cheaper to arm and pay one man than a guerrilla team, and they know my history. I'm the only one they think could do it."

"Why the facility?"

"It's mostly food production and pastoral farmland, but it also has an OILIX lake which outputs three tanks of petroleum per day. If the facility is taken over, Pakistan will have oil, as well as access to a food source and a foothold in later Rassvet conflicts."

"That's the Pakistan army's usual strategy, isn't it? A quick raid to take over a territory, and then using that territory as a bargaining chip."

"I should have guessed you'd be up on your military history, Colonel."

"I - " the Colonel started, and then he considered. "Snake. I'll let you get back to your mission now. But let me ask you one thing."

"What?"

"What are your plans for your retirement? Anywhere nice to live?"

"Colonel - "

"Got any other skills? Is there anything else you can be trained or learn to do?"

"Well - " I told him, looking up at Charlie and then away from him before he caught my eyes reflecting onto the windscreen - "well, I'm not thirty yet, so there's some time before I become an 'old dog'. I don't know what I'll do after this, but I have faith I'll find something better."

Big Boss didn't have that faith. He promised me that in beating him I was sentencing myself to a life of warfare. Regardless of what I was doing right now, I was going to prove him wrong in the long run. Show the pathetic bastard that he became that people can change, the way he could have done if not for the fact that I burned him to death.

"You handled the animals in Zanzibar Land very well - remember that pigeon and that owl? Maybe you should get a pet."

I like animals. Animals don't doubt their natures like people do.

"Maybe I will."

"Or you could start a family."

"Colonel, you've seen my medical records; you know I can't - "

"Yes, but - "

"Can you see me falling in love?" I said, laughing despite my anger. "You know me. It's not going to happen."

"No, I wouldn't expect a self-absorbed son of a bitch like you to be able to give any part of yourself away."

"Thanks, Colonel," I said, cracking a genuine smile. I saw Charlie's head spin around as he tried to see. "But, yeah, I don't know what I'll do. Maybe I'll just end up drifting from place to place, like in old cowboy movies. Doing some good and then going. It'd suit me, since I don't have a name."

The Colonel made a little 'mm' noise. "Take it from me; that lifestyle tires the hell out of you. I wouldn't be surprised if you started ageing twice as fast as a normal person if you did that."

"We'll have to see, won't we?"

The Colonel disconnected.

I sat and looked at the receiver brick. It was dented and scuffed - if I dropped it on the filthy floor of the transport vehicle I'd never find it again amongst the garbage.

"Do you want me to try and capture his signal frequency?" Charlie asked.

I shook my head at him. I was done talking with the Colonel for a long time.

Truth is, I knew exactly where it was I'd end up when I retired. It was the only place that made sense to me, in my head, the place my thoughts kept coming back to. It was there, or the battlefield. Nowhere else mattered to me.

 

\---

 

The facility spread out beneath me as I stood on the hilltop, dark boot on bare ground. It was all covered in a thick blanket of what looked like snow at first, and I felt my body shiver under my donated Pakistani BDUs until I realised the lay of the material was wrong. It was spiky, crispy. It took me a while before I realised the whole area had been covered with what looked like sheets of paper.

What the hell?

I ignored my curiosity and returned to scoping out the area. To the far North of the complex was a greenhouse, sloping walls of blue active glass with sheaves of paper wedged into the drains; to the West, a grain silo. Everything else was unidentifiable; short, ugly buildings built out of grey brick and cement and steel. Rusted crates and barrels stood in open spaces, as if they'd been placed there by someone providing for those who need hiding places, like me. The ZL insignia was emblazoned on nearly everything. I thought of the smell of Natasha's brooch.

Somewhere in the distance, to the East, I heard a goat bleat.

I started off down the slope. Soil dislodged under my soles and I was forced to let go of my AUG to stick my arms out, for balance. The gun's weight hung on a strap, and it swung irritatingly as I moved, but it was better than going in unarmed, like usual. It was a Pakistani licensed copy. Most of the Pakistani mercenaries in this war were receiving M3s - I got the AUG in the lucky dip instead, along with a suit of desert camo.

A rustling sound behind me caused me to turn and pivot my body around to face Charlie, who was trying to attach the active camouflage tarpaulin to the body of the vehicle. As usual, he'd got the strings all tangled up, and the camera-LCDs were all turned off and glittering pink and purple in the afternoon sun. He was about as inconspicuous as the Aurora Borealis.

Not that I looked any less of a mess. From a distance, I looked like a reasonably-dressed mercenary, but under the BDU I was wearing a FOX-HOUND Compression Suit, snug in all the creases of my skin, laces crisscrossed almost right to each other on my rapidly shrinking waist, sleeves and fingerless gloves showing under the cuffs. It strained against my movements subtly as I made them, and it felt secure, comfortable, thrilling; the same feeling I imagine a woman gets wearing beautiful lingerie under dull work clothes. I'd been slathering my face and the back of my neck with sunscreen twice a day, so my skin hadn't darkened enough to hide the dark circles around my eyes, but the Zanzibar dry heat had scorched my long hair blond.

Charlie had said there was anything between five and twenty-five Russians in the base. I'd have to handle it the hard way, work my way around in a circle and clear everyone out. For a second, as I carried on down the hill and the buildings started to rise above my head, my empty gut twisted up, like a snake inside me, as I realised that the men there had no idea I was coming and no knowledge of what I would do. It wasn't a new feeling, but for a second it was so strong I crouched over, clutching the AUG to my chest, feeling the cold scales slide against my organs. As it lifted, I breathed out a sigh of smoke in cold air. My head started to clear. I'd never had an episode that strong before. Maybe it was the lack of food.

 

With food or without, I took out the first enemy behind the grain silo. He was leaning against a crate, speaking down a radio in what sounded like Greek - his glossy, curly hair obscured most of his face. It was impossible to know if he was Russian from his uniform, which looked Israeli, or from his nationality, and that's the curse of mercenaries forced to scavenge or wear what they bring. Fortunately, in this war, every participant was being provided with weapons from the country they worked for. The giveaway wasn't the AKM he was carrying; it was the string of RGNs around his hip which identified him to me. He was occupied with his conversation, and didn't notice me until my hands were wrapped around his throat.

He tried to scream, but I clapped my left hand over his mouth, which he bit down on powerfully. I ignored the pain, pushing him down towards the floor, flipping myself around so I was facing him. With him lying down, I started to choke the life out of him, quietly. His limbs shook as he tried to fight me off, but without air he was unable to recall his training. His voice box buzzed in silent screams against my thumb. Blood vessels burst, dyeing his clear hazel eyes scarlet. They met mine. They begged silently for mercy.

That was enough for me.

I felt my hands loosen from the soft bruised flesh of his neck, unable to comprehend why I was doing it. I'd been able to murder my best friend with no official reason, but not take out a man as part of a mission? I gagged on the sudden flavour of cold sick in my mouth and then realised the man was dead. I'd killed him already.

Which was convenient.

As I lifted my hands away, a thin string of saliva from his dribbling mouth winked brightly in the light before snapping, the last tie of life between the two of us. I stowed his body away, sat him up, carefully put his limp finger onto the trigger of his AKM and closed his eyes with my thumb.

I wasn't thinking straight.

Ignoring the tooth marks on the palm of my hand, I patted myself down for meds until I found the Benzedrine capsules in my first aid kit. I don't normally touch them because even a small dose makes me twitchy as hell - bad genes, I guess - but they're good at keeping you focused mentally and emotionally, and you don't need to worry about food when you're on them. I felt the pill slide into my throat, put away the pillbox, and carried on.

 

The tablet kicked in twenty minutes later, as I worked my way through the greenhouse. It was half an orchard, half a vegetable patch, trees laid out in grids closer to each other than I thought practical, all ringed with feeding lines. Periodic sprays of antifungal hissed left and right, forward and ahead of me. The air tasted heavy with carbon dioxide, and my breath instinctively sped up. As I fought to get it under control, I could sense that the pill had brought my heart rate up, too. The usual sprawling energy under my skin shivered over me, but yet I felt calm, comfortable, and the strange sense of coldness that had worked its way over me had faded. Great.

I crawled on my belly though the sphagnum moss layered up over the soil. Water seeped through the front of my BDUs. Shielded by low leaves, I approached the edge of the orchard, and saw -

_Is that a civilian?_

It was a dark-haired man, eyes wide, white coat streaked with grass stains. Behind him was a tall mercenary dressed head to toe in Splitter, twisting the civilian's arm with both hands.

"_We were sent here to find it,_" the mercenary snarled, in Russian-accented Spanish. "_And you were sent here to build it._"

The civilian screamed in pain. His face reddened.

"_I told you! I'm a geneticist! My job is to grow giant potatoes, for the war effort, that's all. I don't know anything about that bastard thing. They should never have put it here. Please let me go - _"

I heard the click of a handgun. I knew without looking it was a Makarov. The mercenary shook the civilian to the side, revealing a couple of Russian-made WPs on his belt. Bingo.

"_I know you didn't work on it. But you designed its hiding place, didn't you?_"

There was a dry crunch. It was impossible to determine what the mercenary had done to the civilian based on sound alone, but I gritted my teeth against his desperate screams and the way he threw his head back, revealing the white triangle of flesh underneath his jawline.

"_I'll tell you nothing! Let go of me, you son of a bitch!_"

"_This whole place was a smokescreen,_" the mercenary continued. "_Building it under the radar, in a farm where no-one would ever look for it. Why else would they build a food facility in such an inaccessible place?_"

The civilian panted. His eyes flicked around the room, desperately. I watched him through a curtain of foliage.

"_Here's the answer - it's because,_" the mercenary carried on, "_for that thing, terrain is never a problem._"

"_Let me go!_"

He made an attempt to escape, but the mercenary held him back, turning him again. Now, they both had their backs to me.

"_Tell me where it is!_"

"_It's been moved!_"

"_Where?_"

"_I don't know!_"

Between the edge of the orchard and them was a small pool, brilliant green with weed - probably konbu or nori. It wasn't more than a foot in front of my face. Slowly as I could manage, I extended my arms, grabbing onto the ledge of the pool. I pulled my body closer.

"_No-one knows! It was a secret project that Big Boss himself was behind. It's only me and - me, and the farmhands that your men killed, and the development team, who know about it. We only knew because we were hiding it - I don't know where it is right now - I honestly don't know. All I know is that they disassembled it, put it in the back of a truck, and took a digger with them, off to the East. They must be planning to bury it. That's all I know. Look for it if you want it so badly, but you'll die before you ever find it! -_"

I dipped my head under the water, then pulled it up for a quick gasp of air before slithering the rest of my body over the edge of the pool. The water shone green in shafts around me. Carefully, slowly, I broke the surface, and swum over, kicking with my legs alone to minimise sound.

"_Besides, you won't be alone - _" the civilian snarled. "_While you look for it, you'll have to contend with that man. I told him what I know about it, too._"

"_The _Chomiyak _bastard who's been killing us?_"

The civilian's eyes went wide.

"_Where is he?!_"

I couldn't take it any longer.

My nose exhaled bubbles under the algaed membrane of the water as I fired a single shot into the mercenary's head.

The civilian tore around, giving a scream, as the mercenary's body sagged down. The gunshot echoed bassily under the glass ceiling.

I clambered out of the pool.

"_I'm sorry about letting that go on so long,_" I told the civilian. He blinked at me, and looked at my gun.

"_You're -_"

"_I'm sorry to ask you for information,_" I said. "_I'm not going to start hurting you for it, but let's just say I had a pretty good idea what he meant when he said 'terrain wouldn't be a problem for it'. At least, I have a good enough idea to hope that I'm wrong._"

"_I'm not allowed to tell you anything, even if you are on my side._"

He didn't mess around. It was good of him to assume I was on his side, though, even with a Pakistani AUG pointed in his Zanye face. The official gun of Zanzibar Land - the one all the guards I'd faced in the Christmas mission had been carrying - was the original Australian AUG. Lucky for me they hadn't issued me with an M3.

"_That's fine,_" I said, "_but just tell me - is there a chance his men will find it?_"

"_None, now that he's dead._"

The civilian shrunk back a little.

"_Don't worry,_" I told him, "_I said I'm not going to hurt you. Can I ask one thing, though?_"

"What?"

"_What did he mean when he said 'Chomiyak'?_"

I knew what the word meant, but not in that context.

The civilian's eyes lit up, and he laughed.

"_Hamster,_" he said. "_It means 'hamster'. It's what the Russians are calling us._"

"Chomiyaki?"

"Chomiyaki!" The scientist carried on laughing. "_I thought everyone knew about that by now. It's mildly amusing to other people, but - I was part of the hamster modification project, you know. So to me, it's funny as hell." He waved a hand at me, briefly. "Most of the other guys find it an insult, but there's really nothing insulting about it. They're noble creatures. Did you know that wild hamsters form packs to hunt insects in the desert?_"

I can't say I ever had known.

"_That's fascinating,_" I told him, "_but you need to get out of here. I'm clearing out the area._"

"_Ah! You're working with 'the teacher', then!_"

Who the hell?

"_Yeah,_" I lied.

The civilian leant forward, eagerly. "_It's great that they sent someone else in,_" he said, "_especially someone like you. You know, you look a lot like Big Boss._"

I knew in Zanzibar terms that was a big compliment, and I was able to fake a smile just quick enough.

"_Yeah,_" I said, "_except younger. And more handsome._"

"_And much messier and skinnier. You're as arrogant as him, too,_" the civilian said.

"_I know,_" I said, "_Listen. Go and hide in the silo. It's not far from here. There's a dead body there, but - _"

_Scrape._

 

I stared up over to the source of the noise. The civilian next to me made a faint grunt in the back of his throat.

I only enough time to lift up my gun before a spray of bullets tore through the body of the civilian.

My finger came down on the AUG's trigger and I fired back. My shoulder jolted back and forth with the recoil.

He came down, screaming, but the sound of a boot to my left alerted me and I half-turned, grabbing at his torso. I felt his weight flip over my arm - he landed in the seaweed pool. As he flailed to get back to the surface, I fired.

I didn't wait to see if he'd died.

The entrance I'd come in through was starting to echo with boots and gunfire. An alarm started howling as I made my way through the opposite exit. The coldness outside the greenhouse bloomed on my skin, and I ran for a hiding place. Snow-white paper skidded under my feet. The double doors of the building straight ahead of me were open on a latch, and I pushed them open, ducking inside -

\- and recoiled as the door swung closed. I was in complete darkness. The smell of animal shit forced its way down my throat and I gagged involuntarily as the clucking started.

I'd managed to get into the egg production facility.

Adjusting to the dark, I made out tall, tall cages to my left and right, taking up most of the space in the building. Thirty feet up, by the roof, there was what looked like a crawl space. I could hear people approaching. I curled my fingers around the square holes in the cage gratings to the left of me, and pushed my body back, bringing up my feet flat against the cage surface. Thus braced, I clambered skyward. Hens nipped at my fingers with clipped, papery beaks, out of psychotic panic rather than any real desire to protect themselves or even to feed. If birds could have nightmares, these hens were the ones who'd have the worst.

My hands found the ledge at the top of the cages and I rolled my body onto the top, lying down. A fan, probably to dispel the smell, breathed fresh air into my face. I crawled along to the far corner. Each movement I made was magnified by the cages, like a giant sound box. The chickens beneath me clucked; they'd been pecked half-bald, bloody and stinking in their cramped cages.

I unleashed fire as soon as the pursuers opened the doors fully. The hens screamed as my bullets tore through them, puffs of white feathers curling out into the sunlight streaming through the doors, flurries of snow. The men fired up at me, uselessly. They all died in less than a minute, by which time I was climbing back down the cages. White feathers alighted in my hair.

I burst through the double doors at the opposite end of the caged hen gallery, and then my bird-shit-covered boots stuck to sheets of the paper that was coating the area. I slipped. I landed on my face. I kicked my way up just in time to see a gang of five pursuers stop, fifteen feet away.

My hand slid down the curve of my waist, over the ridges of the lacing down the side beneath my uniform. It went to my belt. A shiver of confidence came through me as I remembered what I was wearing underneath.

No-one moved.

I heard the sound of guns cocking behind me, and turned my head. Another group, six men, all using Russian weaponry.

But to my side -

\- the surface of the artificial pool was in a recess seven foot deep at the end of a steep but climbable slope, a brilliant green, the colour of pea soup, smeared all over with oily rainbows and floating sheets of paper. Red tanks down the side sprayed a fine mist of something into the pool - I recognised the smell of ammonia.

It was the OILIX lake.

My hand clenched around the new magazine for my AUG. I backed, slowly, as close to the wall of the lake as I could. I ejected the spent cartridge.

The second the two groups realised I was smacking the new cartridge into the gun, it was too late. I fired in a neat arc, bullets striking three immediately. In the confusion, I mowed down the others.

It couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds.

A red sheet of paper blew in front of me, catching the wind. It curved lingeringly over to the left, and I watched it go, lowering my gun, carefully breathing - _in, out, in, out_ \- until I felt my heart beat slow inside my chest.

Blinking sweat out of my eyes, I started to look back around. There was no sound - just the sound of the hens from the cages behind me clucking in mad panic. And -

\- I raised my gun as I heard the panting of a man, from my hard right. He was covered in blood and seaweed - the mercenary I'd thrown into the pool in the greenhouse. I heard him laugh as his hand went to the WP grenade on his belt.

_Click._

Shit! My magazine was emptied! I ejected the spent one roughly, grabbing for a new one with my spare hand. Something arced through the air, glinting white in the light. A clear, Alaskan moon.

It carried on over my head.

The explosion battered me with steam. I snarled in pain, glancing up, just as the mercenary finally collapsed from his injuries, presumably for good. Flames, orange, white, flared up behind me. I saw more men coming from ahead.

They'd have cut off alternate routes to Charlie by now. I needed to get back to the vehicle to regroup. If I could somehow cross the OILIX lake, I'd be back in the right part of town, and there'd be no way they could follow me -

The smoke was dizzying – I doubled over coughing, I tore off my jacket. I knotted it around the back of my head, over my hair, leaving only my eyes exposed. The lake must have been freshly harvested – the layer of oil was thin, the water only looked five inches deep. My boots were more than five inches tall. Besides which, they couldn't possibly follow me if I went through it.

Of course, put like that, it makes me sound like I thought about it carefully before I did it to make sure it was the best option. I didn't. I did it without thinking about it because it was the only option.

My eyes burned. I closed them. I headed down the slope and stepped into the flames.

The heat burst across my skin.

I took another step.

By now, there were fat orange flames on either side of me, ahead and behind. My pursuers – I took another sloshing step, and the water superheated in a sudden hiss, a plume of sprayed-up white droplets that left little while burns on my black sneaking suit - hang back, staring. The leather on my boots began to smoke.

I closed my eyes again and took another step.

Left... right.

Left –

I felt the pressure of the water rise up higher up the walls of my boots. Ten inches.

Right –

I fought the urge to shoot my leg up from the sudden sear as a trickle of oil poured down over the top of my boot. My gasping mouth pulled in smoke too thick for the jacket to filter, and I lowered my shoulders – and I carried –

on –

 

left.

Right.

 

It turned out –

I hadn't been able to judge the depth of the water properly from the other side. I was a third of the way in. The water was now up to my knees. The BDU on my legs had mostly burned away, only a cobweb left – my black, tightsuited legs were long charred bones.

I've spent my entire life making stupid decisions like this one.

I felt the suit on my legs –

 

Left –

 

getting looser. Wrinkling – like an old man's skin. Peeling from the layer below.

 

Right.

The criss-cross bands of my suit caught fire. They weren't made of the same fire-retardant plastic as the rest of the suit, and shrivelled up in a second. Loosened, the suit's outer layer –

 

I was halfway. I was halfway! It was up to my breastbone –

 

The suit's outer layer fell away from my body. Something brilliant and orange flickered in front of my eyes. My face covering had caught.

 

I –

 

Left –

 

looked up and saw a sky of snow.

 

It took me a second to remember it was white ash, the white ash of burned paper. Burned clothes. Burned skin.

\- I heard a rattle of gunfire somewhere in the distance, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with me.

The burned skin on my knees cracked as the joints sunk.

I thought of pools of sulphuric acid on steel, of those brilliant sharp colours that had made up that battle, the feel of a cold can in my hand.

 

_It's not over yet -_

 

_It's not - _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could smell something.

 

 

It wasn't anything acrid, like smoke, or ammonia, or oil, or bird shit, or burning flesh. It was clean, sweet, a little cloying, laced with the subtlest of chemical burns - it was the smell of wine.

My skin was very naked against the cool floor. As I tried to shift, I could feel my shoulders and my left cheek were ever so slightly stuck to it with natural sweat. The skin on my legs felt compressed, tight, numb.

I opened my eyes. I made out a smooth, wooden floor, polished. And a grey hoof.

_What the -_

The head of a goat dipped into my field of vision. Unlike the goats they'd had us test our ESP potential on during FOX-HOUND training, it had a pair of beautiful black horns that curled up above its head in elaborate spirals, like the headdress of a pharaoh. It bleated at me, and then wandered off, hooves creaking gently against the wooden slats.

I sat up, legs outstretched, and looked around. I was in what looked to be some kind of civilian kitchen, with an old-fashioned stove in front of me. There was a tin cooking pan, the kind issued to soldiers, steaming on top of it, and around it was set various chopping boards and ceramic bowls full of pre-measured ingredients. It was a Christmas card farmhouse, a million miles away from that egg production facility. I turned my eyes down at my body.

My chest was bare. Old scars, recent bruises and increasingly obvious ribs showed underneath a month's worth of dark, regrowing hair. Fortunately, whoever had taken off my shirt and pants hadn't touched my underwear, which I could only think of as a good omen. About two inches from the hem of them, three quarters of the way up my thigh, my legs were cocooned in bandages. I touched them experimentally. They were numb as hell. Had the fire seared the nerve endings, or -

"Are you awake, Snake?"

As soon as I recognised the voice, I knew I must have been mistaken.

"Master?" I asked, turning to face the source of the voice. The room had a rustic-looking wooden table in it, with a door just behind. In the centre of the table there was a bowl of fruit - a weird global mix; a horned melon, peaches, kiwis, three Asian pears and a plantain - which the goat, which must have climbed up on the table at some point, seemed to be eating from.

"Don't worry about your legs."

The far door burst open. In its frame stood Master Miller, FOX-HOUND trainer and my old survival tutor. Most people in FOX-HOUND either had a codename, or had a codename and never used it. I'd heard rumours that the Hell Master had refused to let them assign him an official code because he'd wanted to see what his enemies came up with. His sculpted body looked as good as ever for someone over fifty, sleek under his black undershirt. He wasn't armed, but his BDU pants were DPM - that's a British pattern used in a lot of the ex-colonies, like Pakistan.

"Master, what the hell is - "

"I had to strip you down and clean you up. You're fortunate that the suit stopped your burns from being too severe. That fire was wild, it's a miracle your face hasn't been permanently scarred."

It was then I realised what was bothering me about the way he looked - he wasn't wearing his glasses. His eyes were a lot more Japanese-looking than the rest of him. During training, he was always theatrical about his Sansei origins; used to quote bits of Eastern wisdom and mysticism at us while at the same time dominating us and keeping us under total control - equal parts Iceman and Kwai Chang Caine - and thinking of that, I wondered why he liked to hide his eyes so much.

"Don't mind the goat," he said. "She's a markhor. They keep them in Zanzibar Land, since they handle the climate better than domesticated goats. The milk and meat tastes different, too. She wandered in here of her own accord; since her caretakers have been taken out by the Russians, I haven't been able to turn her out."

"You know it's bad food hygiene to keep animals in the kitchen?" I said, back. "Where the hell am I? What happened to me?"

Master smiled at me, and looked over at the pan on the stove.

"Boiling," he said. Besides the stove was a little chopping board with a hill of fluffy, snow-white cheese on it, which he carefully put into the boiling wine. After stirring it a few times, he replied;

"I was sent here to clean up the Russians and repossess the facility, like you were."

"Huh."

"Although I wasn't made aware of your presence. I'm blaming a communication breakdown high up. After you've been on the battlefield as long as I have, you get used to not knowing anything."

"I'll keep that in mind," I replied.

"When I got here, three quarters of the Russians had been wiped out," Master carried on, not glancing up from whatever it was that he was making. "The rest were investigating a fire in the OILIX lake. I took them all out, but then spotted a body in the flames, almost right on the other side of the lake - you. By that time, the fire had died down, and I was able to dash in and get you out."

I watched him take a bottle of some spirit or another from the kitchen's shelf. He poured a little of it into a ceramic bowl, and then emptied into it a spoonful of soft, white flour. He started mixing it with the same spoon.

"You know, until now, I never believed the rumour that you walked across a near-lethal electric floor to reach Metal Gear back in Outer Heaven. Even for someone as determined as you, it sounded impossible. But for someone who walked across a burning lake..."

He poured the flour mixture into the pan and started stirring vigorously.

"You make it sound like I enjoyed doing it," I sighed, getting onto my feet. "Where did you put my clothes?"

"Over there, by your gun. They're not in the best possible shape, though."

My compression suit was folded into a black and scarlet pile by the wall. I picked it up and shook it out. Master had replaced the burned laces with new ones, but the rest of the outfit was stringy and burned and what little was left of my BDU certainly wasn't worth putting on. Parts of the compression suit had shrunk and warped, curled up at the edges, but it was still better than nothing.

My gun lay beside it, and still looked like it was good condition. Next to that was Miller's AUG.

"Where am I now?"

"You're in the farmhouse that belonged to the owners of this place. I've already buried them. I found them upstairs in their rooms. They were both women, but that's not unusual in Zanzibar, with the armed forces being the default occupation for a man. Seventy per cent of this country's work force is female, did you know that?"

"Because the men just run off and get killed?"

By me.

"Well, due to all the outsourcing it's not that simple."

"Master - "

"What?"

"I've got information."

"About what?"

"I met a civilian, the last one alive here. He was telling a mercenary that something was hidden here, but it was moved, and buried somewhere. Since all the other civilians got murdered by the Russians and since he got killed as soon as he told me, I think it's only me and some Chomiyak he told who know about it. He didn't say what it is, but it was something that could move on any kind of terrain - "

"Snake, I know all about that, don't worry." He laughed. "I know what you're thinking it is, and you're wrong. It's not a Metal Gear."

I raised my hand to my face. Did my obsession really twist my perception of words that much? Charlie was probably right all those times he told me I was sick and needed medicine.

"Well, that's a relief," I said.

"It is a kind of tank, though."

"A Goliath?"

"No, a prototypical new design, conceived before Big Boss's assassination," Master explained, moving the pan off the heat. It steamed. "Don't worry; with Zanzibar in its current financial shape, it'll never see the global stage. The Russians are probably more concerned with seeing what parts of the new technology are valuable and borrowing the principles in their own designs. Russians have an excellent eye for what works and what doesn't, don't you think? You see its magic every time you pick up a Kalashnikov."

I knotted up the sides of my suit. The thing was way too tight and revealing to wear without a BDU over the top - I felt like a naturist.

"Come on," Master said. "I bet you haven't had any home cooking for a while. Let's eat."

I walked over to him and looked into the pot.

"What is that?"

"Cheese fondue. Not as good as what they make in my favourite restaurant, but on the battlefield, any piece of home can be welcome. Have you ever had it before?"

"No."

Master's eyes sparkled. "Well, then -"

"Master, I'm not hungry."

"Snake?"

"I thought you were just cooking for yourself, which is why I didn't say anything," I said. "I've been taking Benzedrine."

For a second Master looked down at my waist.

"It's not like that," I told him, "I haven't been taking it much. I just haven't been able to eat that much anyway, that's all."

"How long has that been for?"

"Since the Christmas mission," I said. "Look, even I'm not stupid enough to go flat out on no food. It's just that I've stopped liking eating. It's hard to make myself."

On our third day in the country Charlie had managed to hijack a truck containing several hundred packets of instant noodles. They'd been my staple diet for the last three weeks.

Master brought the pot up, tipping it slightly to show off the contents.

"I understand. Try some if you change your mind."

I watched him go over to the table, waving an arm to shoo the goat off it. He pushed the fruit bowl aside, and placed the pan down in the spot it used to be in. Standing up again, he walked slowly back over to the counter top, getting down a clean plate and, from the surface, a grey box made of unpolished card. He returned slowly to his seat, opened the box, and tipped out what looked like a small loaf of bread.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked. "Was that made by the people who lived here before?"

"No. The markhor cheese was, I think, but this is actually ration bread. It's a new Zanzibar preservation technique that's supposed to encourage the availability of fresh, delicious meals on the battlefield."

He broke the loaf up in his hands, first opening it up along the middle, then turning it lengthways and tearing off neat, little strips. Maybe his need to have everything pre-measured was a Sansei thing.

He dipped the end of one of the strips into the fondue. He pulled it out, a long white string connecting him to the pot, which he snapped off against the pot's rim. He parted his mouth and placed the fondued end of the bread inside.

I watched his lips close over it. His eyes lowered as he contemplated the taste.

"Mm," he said, eventually.

Feeling awkward, I went back towards the stove and started gathering up the bowls he had been using, but he called me back over. I returned to the table, and flopped down on the wooden chair, tilting it diagonally to face him.

"So, I assume you're fighting here as a way of getting around that money business?" he asked me.

"You know about that?"

"The Colonel told me." He swirled a piece of bread in the thick sauce. "Personally, I think it's unjust, but I can see why he made his decision. Still, whether at war or writing a story about an action game, it's always a good idea to have a backup plan in case circumstances turn out differently to how you planned, or you accidentally overwrite your data. I think he could have planned his way out of that if he'd cared much."

"He's forwarded the money to someone else."

"Who?"

"The man he wants to give leadership of the unit to," I said. "But it's strange. The way he was talking about it made me think they hadn't even met."

Master contemplated this. His bronze shoulders rolled a little. "Sounds to me like he's more desperate to get out of there than he's ready to let on. Do you think something else might be going on?"

I shrugged. The bottom of the pot scraped against the wooden table as Master pivoted it. "Probably. There always is. Not that it matters to me any more - this is my last war before I officially retire."

"That makes two of us. After this mission - I'm going to move out somewhere, for some peace and quiet."

"Any idea where yet?"

"None."

I smiled. "That makes two of us as well."

Two of us in a lot of other ways. There's only one person who knows what the story really is, and I killed him, but I grew up being told I was part Japanese. As far as I'm aware, it was just the two of us in the whole unit who were. I was drawn to how shameless he was about being Sansei; it was the closest thing to an actual piece of culture from that part of my history I'd ever experienced.

Whether or not that was still something I could call my history. I like to think it is, but if it wasn't it'd explain why I don't look half-Japanese.

"Sorry to change the subject," I began, "but why is this area covered in paper?"

"ArmsTech gave out a bunch of helicopters to the Russians on the grounds that they constantly air drop those fliers while in motion. It's a true guerrilla advertising campaign. Made mostly by guerrillas."

"They're fliers?"

"You didn't look at any sheets close up, did you? There's a few which came down the chimney. Why don't you pull them out of the grate?"

The goat - the markhor - was standing around in front of the sleeping fireplace. I shooed it to the side with a deliberately misaimed kick, and pulled out five or six coal-smeared sheets. On closer inspection, they were printed on - with writing in extremely pale grey, probably to save on ink costs. I opened my mouth to read what was on it to Master, but then I realised the writing was all in Czech.

"I can't read it - "

"They're in all different languages. See if you have one in English."

I flipped through the papers.

"No, but I have one in French -"

"That was your first choice for second language in FOX-HOUND, wasn't it?" Master said, tipping up the pot forty-five degrees and soaking up the thin film of molten cheese with a piece of the bread. I wished I was hungry enough that I could look at it and think of eating it as anything other than vaguely repulsive. "Read it to me, Snake."

Years ago, I'd decided to take French as my first learned language totally arbitrarily – around the time I was joining FOX-HOUND, I was under the spell of a short-lived but embarrassingly powerful obsession with an old French movie called _Hiroshima Mon Amour_. A Japanese man and a European woman in love – maybe that had been another attempt to work out what my own worthless history looked like. Not like the movie was any help with that.

"Okay," I said, to the pamphlet. "_Mercenaires de Zanzibar _\- that's, 'Mercenaries of Zanzibar!' – _Tout le monde sait que les mercenaires de Zanzibar sont les meilleurs du monde._ \- 'Everyone knows that Zanzibar mercenaries are the greatest in the world.'"

"Carry on. Your accent is excellent, by the way."

I was doing. "_Nous sommes impatients de découvrir ce qui fait de vous des soldats aussi extraordinaires._ \- 'We are eager to explore what about you makes you such incredible soldiers.' _Rejoignez-nous! _\- 'Join us!' – _Bonne rémunération et une chance de faire partie de la NEXT GENERATION de combattants._ \- 'Lucrative pay and a chance to become part of the Next Generation of combat.' _ArmsTech_ – 'ArmsTech'." I put the pamphlet down. "Is anyone actually getting involved in that?"

Master finished swallowing down a piece of bread. I saw the muscles in his smooth throat move.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "The less patriotic Zanzibar mercenaries are desperately trying to find other contracts, and are mostly being snapped up by the US or volunteering for ArmsTech's Genome project. They're numb, leaderless. They don't have a direction any more." He massaged the flesh between his eyebrows. "As a teacher like me, it's painful to watch all this potential get squandered. What position are you in?"

I frowned. "What?"

"I think you have leadership ability in your blood, Snake. You should apply for a leadership position."

"I don't know what you - " I started, but then everything fell into place, and I couldn't do anything but stare at Master. Obliviously, he carried on eating. I watched him raise his fingertips to his mouth as he pushed the piece of bread in.

My tongue felt like it had been plunged into a snowbank.

Slowly, I walked over to my AUG, lying up against the wall, next to Master's. I picked it up; pulled the strap over my shoulder. The serial number was stamped onto the right side of the chamber cover, and I read mine - a licensed Pakistani copy number.

"Snake, what are you - " Master started, and then I heard him realise what I was doing. He stood up, grinding a piece of bread into the tabletop. I shivered as I picked up Miller's AUG, and read its serial number.

It was made in Australia.

"Of course," Miller said, quietly. "That's the curse us mercenaries embody. We have no lines of identity to tie us to any side."

I pointed the gun at him.

"Kind of a stupid mistake for us both to make, huh. Lucky I figured it out sooner."

Miller's hands stiffly rose to the sky. I saw his eyes flick around to find weapons he could improvise with, and so I came towards him, gun fixed on his head.

"I just - " Master said, "I just can't believe you didn't want to work for Zanzibar Land. The nation you destroyed. If you wanted to find your penance, you'd find it there."

"Shut up!" I snarled, prodding his chest with the nose of my gun.

"I don't need money. I'm working for Zanzibar Land because I want to. Those men do deserve their nation, and even though it's nothing without Big Boss's leadership, there's other places for them to find. That's why I offered my services."

"Because you were responsible as much as I was, huh?" I snapped, and Master swallowed nervously. "You were the one who told me what to do when I was cornered by Big Boss. I would have been a goner otherwise. And all the other things you said - about how to fight, how to survive. I was your weapon."

"You were never supposed to assassinate Big Boss," Master said back to me, hand curling around the gun's nose. "That was something that ended up happening. You know, you and I, we're bastards for doing what we did."

"Completely."

"Zanzibar hates both of us."

"'Zanzibarstards'," I joked, grimly. His knuckles turned white around the gun's nose. Sweat glowed on his temples.

"And you're the biggest, most hateful Zanzibarstard of them all."

"This isn't helping you stay alive."

"You're not helping me die," he smirked. I saw a flash of his white teeth under his lips. "Why aren't you killing me right now?"

"I'm going to kill you," I told him. "You're the enemy."

Suddenly, his face melted. Cold froze my veins shut. For a second, I felt scared to move from the spot I was standing, as if the floor was laid with mines.

"This is what you were trained for," he said. "As your teacher, I'm happy."

I moved to pull the trigger. I double-checked that the gun was loaded. Triple-checked.

"You can't be happy, you'll be dead."

"Just hurry up and shoot me."

I said, "Okay."

I put my finger back on the trigger. I felt the mechanism begin to move -

Pain exploded in my stomach and I doubled over, choking back vomit. I hardly noticed Master's hands grabbing my gun away from me, and just as I finally stood, fists raised, its butt came down hard on the back of my neck. My chin slammed against the wooden table. Green and black burst across my vision. I sunk into the mandala.

 

I came to some time later. The fondue had gone solid in the pot. The goat was gone - so was Miller. But on the table was my AUG, resting on a cardboard box just big enough to hide a man.


	2. il brutto

Back in the vehicle, I stripped off my scorched suit and, padding around in my underwear and bandages on the metal floor, gave myself the closest thing to a clean-up I could manage in the back of a reeking personnel transport vehicle with limited hot water. Charlie had managed to score an electric kettle from somewhere, and after boiling it and letting it stand for a while to cool, I poured its contents over my hair, and wiped down my face and body with my own wet hands. It didn't do much more than shift the grime around, painting long dark streaks where my fingers went, but it was reviving enough that I even felt brave enough to attempt shaving. I hadn't bothered since just before the Christmas mission, and after each painful stroke of the cheap razor I had to slide the inch-long hairs out of the clogged blade with my thumb. Afterwards, face prickly and sore, I tried forcing myself back into the suit, but my skin was too wet and I couldn't find anything to dry myself off with.

I gave up and slumped against the wall, bare feet in the puddle I'd made. It had turned an ugly brown from the spilt coffee, and its surface was marbled with white dust. It was dripping out of the gap underneath the double doors.

"Charlie," I said, wringing dark fluid out of my hair, "I'm sorry about the fire."

"You should be," he snapped back. I tilted my head to see through the partition, and saw nothing but his pale knuckles standing out on the steering wheel. "Good thing you got back here in one piece even though the place is crawling with Hamsters."

"Lucky I found that box, huh?"

"Lucky."

It was propped up against the partition right now, upside down, half full of the debris I'd been picking up from the floor. A beautiful thing like that, reduced to a trash can. Still, boxes are great like that – unpretentious. They'll do unglamorous things.

"Where did the Zanye come from? Were they trying to repossess the facility at the same time as me?" I asked.

"I was hoping you'd ask," Charlie said, "I was running a look-up as soon as I was able to ID them as Zanye. Seems they'd been cleaning out the area from the other end. There's thirty of them and all of them are better at this job than you."

"Listen – "

"They belong to a unit, though. All of them are handpicked by this one merc they have working for them. They call him 'the teacher'."

"What's his real name?"

I knew already.

"You know already; he's Master Miller," Charlie said, and I thought I picked up a little regret in there. "Your old survival trainer."

"Yeah," I said. "I suppose I do know."

"I – " Charlie started, "I wasn't trained by him myself, but we always used to get on when we talked. He was so – mysterious, kind of spiritual. Talked about the battlefield in a way that was totally impersonal."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

I said, "Don't be. It's not important. I've got better news, anyway. We might be able to retire early on it."

That made Charlie pay attention. He looked back over the partition at me, and smiled.

I smiled back.

"While I was there, I met a Zanye scientist," I started. "Apparently, the Russians are looking for something – some kind of new prototypical tank. But the project was top secret, and got canned with Big Boss's death, so not even a lot of the Zanye know about it."

"Go on."

"I overheard him tell the mercenary who was keeping him hostage where he thinks the project was hidden. Then – then he died, and all the Russians who were sent there to interrogate him died, too. As far as I know, there's only two people out there who know what I know – myself, and Master."

"You know where it was hidden?"

"No," I said, "but I have a clue. And that's better than nothing. Whatever's going on, we can't let whatever it is get retrieved by Zanzibar, and – let's face it, the Russians are going to beat them."

"Yeah," Charlie agreed. "They've got budget, numbers and experience fighting Zanzibar on their side. Pakistan's mostly trying for landgrabs, they're not interested in conquest."

"So," I continued, "if we can find that tank, we can sell it to Russia. If we're lucky, when Zanzibar hears we have the tank, they might pay more to keep it out of the Russians' hands. The money we make doing that might be enough to get me out of this war."

"Snake – "

"I know," I said. "But this isn't an ordinary war. This is a Mercenary War. We're chained to our sides, not by ideals or race or interest, but with money. It's artificial loyalty. There's no shame in defection, no matter which side you defect from."

"Even if you defected from the Pakistanis to the Zanye?"

I hesitated.

"Can we just get on with finding the tank?"

"Why didn't you side with the Zanye in the first place?"

"Well," I said, "that's – obvious. Ever heard of depleted morale? I've never experienced it myself, but I hear it's what a unit feels when you have to work with the sad, pathetic Zanzibarstard who assassinated your leader, killed all your comrades and caused this stupid war in the first place."

"But they're not regular soldiers. They're mercenaries," Charlie insisted. "More than any nation out there, they'd understand. And if you'd gone Zanzibar, you'd be looking at a leadership position, and – "

"I don't want to spend my freedom inside a hamster cage," I growled. "Maybe I don't want a leadership position. And if you think the Zanye are short of talented grunts, you're wrong. They have too many. That's why the chain of command is so messed up – hotshots who don't trust their leaders any more. Between that and the low budget, that's why they're getting their asses handed to them; it wouldn't surprise me if the nation got dissolved within two months. The Russians have the firepower and experience, and they're going to win this war. But the Pakistanis are just opportunistic – little meaningless territory expansions, that's all they're doing. That's why I decided to side with Pakistan. It was as close as I could come to not getting involved!"

Charlie's eyes closed at my attack. I remained standing there, silent, waiting for him to respond. He didn't.

I started putting my suit back on. It was cut to look like a naked body, way too revealing even for a battlefield on which I didn't expect to be seen. With my BDU gone, I started digging through the box for something else to cover up with – I found a dark green blanket, which I tossed aside, and, crumpled at the bottom, my FOX-HOUND coat. It was creased all over, but wearable, and I slipped it on. It was too hot to do it up, but better a flasher than a streaker.

After a little while, Charlie regained the strength to speak to me.

"Snake?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's hear your idea for where this thing is hidden."

This, I was ready for. I put my hands on my hips.

"What we know is that the people hiding the tank took it out, in a container, and brought a digger with them," I said. "They headed off East. The Russians are still looking for the tank and don't even seem to know that it was buried. Get all that?"

"Yeah."

"Now," I carried on, "the container needed to have been buried in a large area, so that the vehicles needed to deposit it – and transport it out again – could be brought in without trouble. That starts to narrow it down. They'll also have been looking for a place that's fairly easily defensible due to either terrain or existing structures, and nearby facilities for reassembling the tank."

"With you so far."

"The key to the whole thing is that the Russians didn't know it was buried."

"Why's that?"

I gestured up to the sky with my right hand. Charlie's eyes followed it.

"The spy satellites, right?" he said.

"Yeah. What's the period of the Russian spy satellite examining Zanzibar?"

"They're about 2000 kilometres up and go about 30 000 kilometres per hour, so – about an hour and three quarters?"

I nodded. "Right. So, in less than two hours, they had to hide an object bigger than a tank – including travel time from the farm. And they had to do so without leaving obvious traces. And that suggests two things to me – that they buried it close to the farm, and that they buried it somewhere where the ground was soft enough that it could be buried that easily. I'm thinking in sand, or something."

"You're thinking the desert?"

"Not quite," I said.

My chest clenched up.

"What are you thinking of?"

\---

Zanzibar Land was a nation; a small but whole country comprising of hills and mountains, deserts and rivers and swamps and steppe. There's rural areas, like the farming facility; there's mighty cities filled with people, defending themselves from the Russian assault with the desperation of those about to lose their homes. But, to me, the whole nation comes down to one tiny place. The fortress.

I watched through the partition and the windscreen as we approached, from the side. Its towers – the glittering Monolith of the Tower Building, casting its shadow on its short, fat sibling – burned an inverse image onto the backs of my eyes against the rising sun. My hand rose to the indent between my clavicles.

"Charlie," I said, "I really don't know if it's a good idea to come back here."

"It was your idea," he shot back. "And it's empty. The Zanye say it's unlucky and the Russians don't want it. They've already been and gone, stripped out all the useful tech and left everything else to rust. It doesn't matter what they used to be building there – this is a whole mercenary nation. The fortress is just one garrison."

"So we won't run into anyone?"

"Unless the Teacher's thinking the same thing you're thinking, no."

I looked back at the fortress. I could make out the splintered remains of the Bridge of Sorrow, little more than a snapped matchstick wedged in the crevice. The snake inside my gut tightened its hold around it.

"Charlie – "

"Yeah, I see, don't worry about it. The bridge is busted. So I guess the best way of getting in there is travelling in through the swamp – "

I remembered the smell of it, warm black mud and oil. Stumbling through with nothing but blind faith and luck and strong legs as war-painted children played on the shore and laughed at me.

"There has to be a truck route there, I'll find it. The forest – Maze Wood, right? That's going to be a little harder. I've heard it kills your radar in there. And it's thick –"

Green against green against green, beret against uniform against the dark leaves of the jungle. Darting out of his glance. He knew I was following him. He never saw me until he'd led me right into that room, feet aching from the distance and head throbbing with each tap.

" There's got to be an outside route for a truck to get through to the Tower – "

\- stretching out below me, creaking as the wind changed. Breathing in a little whisper of smoke, right down into my bones. Spreading my wings and running and –

" – after all, even if they didn't know the Bridge was gonna go they couldn't have risked stranding everyone to the North. Those truck routes still had to carry on, shipping boxes and other shit – "

– and me, riding blind and swallowing my own beating heart in my taped-up prison –

" – after all, they had the prison up North – "

– red around his neck, face twisted, purple, dead. An old man adjusted his glasses with hands that, when wrapped around my throat, feel like steel –

" – and the Metal Gear hangar, of course! How could I have forgotten about that?"

The long black tunnel, the pain of the landing. The machine, green and ugly, armour swollen with the tumours of new armaments. Touching the most familiar pair of fists in the world; the ecstasy of bleeding.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the moving floor under my boots.

"My best friend," I said, "the most important person to me. He died there."

Charlie hesitated. I caught him looking at my face's reflection in the windscreen. He didn't turn around.

"In the Metal Gear hangar?"

"Yeah. A minefield, beneath the prison. I did it," I said.

"Why?"

"We're mercenaries," I told him, "you figure it out. There's no lines of loyalty to bind us to our sides, and so when it gets involved, that whole structure comes tumbling down."

I closed my mouth. I opened it again. Closed it. Something under the vehicle crunched.

"What was his na – "

"Frank Jaeger," I said. "I never knew him as that, but that was his name."

The name was poison, a perfect and awful little capsule of all the parts of Fox I had no interest in. I didn't care about anything he did as a human – the things he needed, the people he loved, his life – and he extended the same total lack of interest towards my personal life. Which was the reason why I hadn't told him what my name was.

"So – "

"Gray Fox," I said. That name tasted better. "He was my friend."

"The only member who ranked 'Fox', right? They told us all about him to encourage us. Didn't stop me only scoring 'Clione', but – " Charlie stopped, nervous. "The Colonel told us he was KIA after Outer Heaven."

The Colonel! He'd rather call a good man dead than share a difficult truth.

"He wasn't. He was one of Big Boss's loyalists. He stayed for a little while after Outer Heaven, some wonderful months, and I'd like to think it was because he was also loyal to me. But it was probably just because he needed to know where Big Boss was hiding. He defected to Zanzibar," I pulled a cigarette out of my pocket with shaking hands, "and then he left."

"And then you had to kill him."

I rubbed the ridges of the knuckles on my right hand with my left thumb.

Charlie gave my reflection a long look. I couldn't see what he was thinking, but the tiredness under his eyes looked almost as bad as mine.

Suddenly, he threw his head back, with a grin.

"Well, we're off to dig up that tank," he said. "Maybe we can bury some ghosts in the hole we make after we pull it out."

With renewed enthusiasm, he slammed down on the accelerator, gunning the vehicle up a concrete slope, streaked with dried mud. I returned to Master's box, and took out the long silver stem of a mine detector. It was time to hunt for buried treasure.

 

\--

 

The artificial desert squeaked under our feet as we walked into the shadow of the Tower Building, vehicle parked safely under the camo canopy on the sand. It didn't look as drastically different as it felt from the way it had been when I had fought there two months ago. If it had been dead, rusting, soulless, I'd have felt more at home. The only difference was silence.

Charlie, balancing the stems of the shovels on his full shoulders, asked me, "How big is this place?"

"Last time I came here, its area was only about twelve screens," I said.

Charlie stared around. The sunlight burned off his glasses.

"That's not going to work here, since everyone's viewing this in different resolutions. "

I sighed. "Sorry. Adapting's pretty hard sometimes."

"What was being landed on that Helipad over there?"

"A Hind D."

"So the helipad is 42.4 metres long minimum. I make it about nine and a half Helipads to the Tower Building entrance, so that's only about four hundred metres."

"And considering how thin the area is, that's about six hundred metres square maximum," I estimated. "Less since it's going to be pointless searching up against the chain fences at the desert's boundary. We'll work our way slowly up towards the tower, with this thing – "

I waved the detector.

"Then we find it, and we dig," Charlie said.

He waved his shovels.

I nodded at him and turned the detector on, with a beep.

\--

It started beeping enthusiastically not more than ten metres from our starting position. I swept the disc of the mine detector left and right, and nodded to Charlie.

"Looks kind of small for a tank container," he said.

"It's pretty big," I responded, demonstrating with a wide sweep, mine detector screaming furiously. "Smaller than I'd expect, but the tank was disassembled, remember? Maybe it's really compact."

Charlie shrugged.

I put the mine detector down and took one of my shovels from him, and bit into the soft yellow sand with it, pushing on its blade with my boot. On my second dig, I felt something hard against the end of the blade.

I was opening my mouth to tell Charlie that it had been easier than I'd expected, but Charlie picked my mine detector back up and motioned for me to step away, frowning behind his dusty glasses. I listened closely to the pattern of beeps, but before I could figure out what they meant Charlie had already started digging. Peering over, I could see the edge of something metallic, and grey-green. He pushed it up with the blade of the shovel. It tilted up like a lever, pouring sand noisily.

"Okay, it was a little small," I conceded, looking at it. I turned away before he could catch my look of frustration. How'd I managed to forget –

"Hey," Charlie said, "this is part of the outer armour of the tail boom of a Hind D."

I didn't respond. I turned back around, intending to pick the metal detector up again. Charlie had the crumpled sheet of metal almost fully visible, still buried in under two months of shifting sand, and he was looking at it intensely.

"Something really did a number on this," he commented, touching it with the palm of his hand.

I ignored him.

"You think it – wait."

I gripped the handle of the mine detector.

"_Wait_. Snake. You said a Hind D used to be on that helipad."

I switched the detector on.

"How would you have known if you didn't – you didn't kill the Killer Whale, did you?"

I looked back at him.

"You did," he carried on. "I know you did. How the hell did you manage to do something like – "

"I – just shot a load of missiles at it. It wasn't that difficult, it only really needed good timing. I just took cover every time it came overhead and shot like hell whenever it was heading away from me."

"But – that thing's designed to take out tanks – "

"Ironic what they hid in here, then," I snarled. "Is this little interrogation over? I didn't have a choice in what I did. It was the only way I could have proceeded with the mission. So don't treat it like some miracle that I succeeded. Me being here at all means it happened. Get over it."

I swept the mine detector along, listening to Charlie's squeaking footsteps following along behind me as I carried on towards the tower building.

"That's kind of zen."

_Beep – beep – bipbipbipbipbipbreeeeeeebipbipbreeeeeee_

"Not really," I said, digging around in the spot it had indicated with my left hand, not letting go of the mine detector with my right. My fingers closed over something smooth and metal, not more than a hand-height in, and I pulled it out. It was an old ration tin, opened, but not all the way, and the lid folded back tightly. Not having much to lose, I bent the lid back. The contents' smell hit me. Inside, it had been cleaned out carefully of any traces of food, and there was a plastic mouthpiece, the kind people wear during sports to prevent teeth getting knocked out. It looked like it had been specially-made.

"Charlie, what's a ration gumshield doing here?"

"Is that supposed to be a reference to something?" he asked, as I tossed the tin away. He followed it with his eyes. "You know, you should be more careful – "

"Relax. No-one's going to find us here," I said. "If they do, we'll hear them by the sound of them on the sand – "

"I was going to ask," Charlie cut in. "What's with the sand?"

"He had it specially imported as a security measure," I said, bending down, digging out a bullet casing with a squeak and throwing it backwards between my legs. "It's called 'singing sand', it's all over the world. This stuff's from Okinawa in Japan. You know, it loses its singing voice when there's pollution around. This all had to be specially scrubbed."

"Lot of trouble to go to."

"Yeah," I said. I cast out the detector like a fisherman casting a net, listening for the beep. Nothing. "You know, it's almost like he was trying to impress me with the effort he went to in order to keep me out."

"You mean intimidate?"

"No, I mean imp – "

_BREEEEEEEEEE_

I looked back down at the end of the detector. I drew it as far to the left of me as my arms reached, then as far to the right. I took a few paces left. It carried on screaming.

I looked back at Charlie.

"Whatever this is, it's big."

Charlie smiled, plunged his spade into the chirping sand, and took off his glasses. He rubbed the grimy lenses on the German shirt I'd procured for him from the backpack of a dead mercenary. It had been a gag gift, a nod in his direction after he stole the vehicle on my behalf, and didn't quite fit his loose, lightly-fit frame.

"Think this is it?"

I threw the mine detector down, and began digging as fast as I could, sweat running into my eyes. The sand kept pouring back into the hole, no matter how much I cursed at it, and Charlie started helping me, digging the sand I'd already dug and pouring it elsewhere.

I struck something hard about three feet under.

I paused.

I rapped the shovel on what it was I'd dug up.

The dull, deep metallic clang might as well have been angel bells.

Charlie looked at me, excitedly, as I stared down into the hole.

"What can you see?"

"It's painted green," I said. I pushed more sand aside, across the iron surface, with the end of my foot. "There's a thick yellow line on it. It's writing."

"What does it say?"

I shifted more shovelfuls of sand.

"It's a letter 'U', about a foot high," I said. "Capital U."

"How do you know it's a cap –"

Charlie gasped as my shovelful of sand hit him in the stomach, exploding over his clothes with an excited squeak. His eyes widened. I grinned at him, and threw a handful at his legs.

"Don't just ask stupid questions! Help me dig this thing out!"

"Alright – "

We uncovered the next letter, digging in silence. The ends of our shovels occasionally knocked into each other's, a sound like a knife and fork. We scraped away sand coating a foot-high G and an S. Even on the sand, the container echoed under our feet.

"G U S," Charlie said, tossing his shovelful at my ankles with some force. "Great unearthing, Snake."

My hands were shaking around the handle of the spade with anticipation. I looked down at them, and let my shovel go.

"Thanks," I said to Charlie, and embraced him. I felt my own body stiffen up at the contact, but his warmth filled my chest and his hands rose up on my back, and I held him for as long as I could bear to. When I let go, he tilted his head, as if he expected me to say something, but instead he gave a little laugh and hefted up his spade again and –

I heard the sound of a gun cocking.

I whipped around and looked up.

On top of the ten foot high chain link fence, there stood a mercenary – wiry, face smeared with mud and reddened with fading sunburn scars. Her brown hair was cropped off straight just above her ear lobes, and shiny in the brilliant sun. She was standing on one leg – her other was outstretched almost ninety degrees, counterbalancing her gun.

"Don't move," she said.

Charlie looked at me, desperately. I looked back at him. His expression when he realised I had no idea what to do was painful.

"Put down your gun," she insisted, her suspended toe twitching a little as she spoke, but her standing leg a solid pillar under her Zanye uniform. My hands went to the AUG. My finger slid over the trigger guard –

"We don't need your driver alive," she added.

I lifted the strap off my shoulders.

Behind me, Charlie made a small sound, but I couldn't tell if it was of fear or surprise or disapproval or assent because I wasn't going to take my eyes off her to look at his face.

"Your accent," I said. "You're a Frenchwoman. I saw the personnel list. There weren't any women from France in the Zanzibar Mercenary Army. Why are you fighting for them now?"

"_Je suis une enfant terrible_."

"That Melville movie?" I said. I started to crouch, gun in my hands, not moving my gaze. It occurred to me that I'd heard that phrase somewhere else with some other significance, but I couldn't place it.

"Hurry up!"

I didn't. I set the gun down by my left foot, as close to me as I could. Then I rose. Charlie's hand brushed against my right shoulder and then settled, and I felt his fingertips slowly dig in against my bone.

"Teacher," she called. Her voice echoed from the shaft of the Tower Building.

I paused. I forced myself to tilt my head around. In the distance, at the other end of the artificial desert, I could make out the dark shape of Master, walking towards us.

Without moving from her poise, without moving her hand from her gun, the mercenary tilted her head to watch him. She looked like a dog waiting for her owner to play a game with her.

The squeak of Master's footsteps grew louder. Picked out by the lifeless yellow of the sand and the scalding blue of the February sky, his skin was bronze, deceptively smooth and youthful but worn hard like an old tool. His eyes were the sleek black shadow of his sunglasses. Charlie gave a low whistle under his breath.

"Thank you," he said, walking up to the fence beneath the mercenary. "That's both of them. Good job, Goose."

"Goose?" I snarled up at her. She stared down at me, shadowed and expressionless. "Did you only join after they'd used up all the good animals?"

She leaned over, at an impossible angle, gesturing fiercely with her gun. Her body didn't slip from her perch.

"You –"

"Goose," Master said.

She paused, and her face relaxed a little as she let herself stand back upright.

Master stood right in front of me, hands on hips. I heard a squeak to my left, and glanced down in time to see my gun skid away a good three metres on the sand in the wake of his kick. Behind the shade of his glasses, I could make out the faintest cruel flash to his eyes.

He crouched down onto one knee in front of me. I looked over at the top of his head, unsure of his next move until his right hand shot out and gripped my right inner thigh.

I tried reflexively to stagger away, but he kept his grip tight. The suit had turned holey from the fire, and he reached his thumb through one high up the top of my leg. I felt it slide in under the bandages, and my skin shivered over with cold for the second before he withdrew, holding a small metal disc in his left hand. It had a short wire sticking out of it.

"You put a transmitter in my – "

"I thought you were on my side," he explained, adjusting his sunglasses with his left hand, "but I hadn't been informed of your presence. It was going to be strictly in order to prevent any more mix-ups like the one I'd thought had occurred."

"And it turned out it was lucky you did," I said. "For you."

I could see, in the distance, others approaching. Around half were wearing the usual dollar-store bargain-rack multinational uniforms, hanging off them in strange sizes – the other half were proudly dressed in the brown woodland Zanye camouflage. There was more than thirty of them, and a truck which suggested even more.

Goose hopped down from the fence. When she landed on the sand, knees bent, it made the faintest sigh. In front of me, I could see she was older than her body looked, and her mature skin was a blizzard of freckles. As she rose her stare sliced into me like a sword made of ice, and I wondered what had made her feel that much hatred.

"Master," I begged. "Tell me. Why are you working with them?"

Master folded his arms.

"I'm loyal to the 'end'. To my purpose. What about you, Snake? What's it going to be? Loyalty to your country, or loyalty to your old mentor? Your mission, or your beliefs?"

"I don't have any loyalty to my country."

He nodded. "No-one does here. But you're not even loyal to yourself."

I started. "Wha – "

"Where's your bandanna?"

I touched my naked forehead. I don't know why, but ever since the Christmas mission I hadn't been able to tie it up properly. It would fix my hair into strange bulging loops that felt weighty and distracting as I moved my head; catch it painfully in the knot. I'd given up wearing it and I couldn't see myself wearing it ever again.

Master shook his head at my silence. "If you can't put the past behind you, you won't survive long."

"You're telling me – I killed Gray Fox and Big Boss, and – you're telling me I need to just get over it?"

"That's not what I'm saying." Master's voice was calm. "A soldier's memories are his greatest asset. That pain you feel is the pain that will keep you from doing awful things in the future."

"Doesn't seem to be working yet."

"Yeah," Master said, and disappointment crossed his features. "I knew you'd be after Gustav, so I followed you here. Really, though – "

He crossed in front of me, over to the hole, and jumped down into it with a bassy, metallic thud.

"Out of both of us," he continued, "I need it to save the people of the country that created it. It's the last piece of Big Boss's legacy left here intact. It walks tall on his ideals. You wanted to take that and pervert it, motivated by nothing but your own selfishness. An able mercenary abandoning the war – that's not very valorous."

"And so you're the good guy."

"That's right."

"I'm not going to debate that," I said. "I'm not against you. I'm only acting because I need that money –"

"And you'd get your money if you did what you're being paid to do," he said.

"And what I'm being paid to do is kill. So what does that make me into?"

"Clearly too messed up to be either good or bad."

I sighed. I didn't need someone else dissecting my own morality. I was good enough at that on my own.

Master looked up towards the top of the Tower.

"Well," he said, genially, "the wind's blowing North, a good warm breeze. My truck's full of food and water. It's a nice day. It's a good day for digging."

"You're going to leave me alive just to – "

"Out of both of us, I'm the one carrying a gun."

I swallowed. If I was able to grab Goose and take her gun, Master, in the hole, might take a second to get out, which might give me enough time to shoot him, and then I'd only have to worry about the thirty mercenaries shooting at me. Most likely he wouldn't bother getting out and would just kneecap me the second I grabbed her, because – the truth was – I wasn't needed to dig. I was one man in thirty, and he was letting me live to give me a chance to kill him out of my own greed when the tank was unearthed.

He really was the good guy.

"Okay," I said, smiling back at him. "Makes enough sense. No point killing each other something still in the ground."

 

\---

 

I dug with Charlie by my left, and Goose behind me. Most of the mercenaries were talking and laughing as they dug, including Master. We were the only three who weren't.

The atmosphere was enough like a funeral anyway, and I couldn't think of anything I could say to Charlie, knowing what I'd done to him. Instead, I turned to Goose.

"You were really well balanced on that fence," I told her. "You must have climbed on it on the other end and walked along the whole length to get the jump on us. Right?"

"Yes," she said, "that's what I did."

She dug.

"Your posture. Are you a gymnast?"

"I was, once."

"Olympic-level, I'd say. Did you compete?"

"No," she said.

"Why not?"

She glowered at me and carried on digging.

"So why did you join up with Master?"

"Revenge."

"On whom?"

"On you."

"On me?"

"Dig faster and stop talking."

I sped up. The three of us had unearthed one of the long edges of the top of the container, and were starting to dig the sand away from the edge. The whole effort sounded like a metal dog shaking a rubber bone.

"But Miller didn't even know I was – "

"Someone else should be in my place," she said. She scraped the end of the shovel along the side of the container, a nails-down-a-blackboard sound that made Charlie walk away a couple of steps and start digging there. "He sought a place here. But he found only death."

I watched her for a moment – expressionless and yet quietly angry, stopping sand from falling back into her hole with the edge of her boot as she dug. Then I realised what she'd meant up on that fence earlier.

"_Les Enfants Terribles_," I said. "Those French terrorists."

"We weren't terrorists," she said, "we were mercenaries, like you."

"Mercenaries employed by terrorist organisations – "

"And that makes us as bad? You're a hypocrite."

"So you came here because I killed – "

"Running Man. My friend."

I could recall the sound of my own feet pounding against the metallic floors of the emptied hangars, the sound of my breath rasping through the filters of my mask. He had never directly impeded me or attacked me – that would have been bad sportsmanship for an athlete. If he'd killed me, it would have been because I'd failed at the task, not because he'd tricked me. He'd been prepared for loss as an outcome, which isn't something I've ever been.

"I said goodbye to him," I told her. "I didn't get to say goodbye to most of the others, but I stayed by him until he went."

"You left him ali – "

"He didn't have long. He was wounded and his oxygen cable was cut. When he was ready to go he just took a deep breath, it was painless. He asked me my codename, and shook my hand. Then he died."

Goose wasn't satisfied – she carried on waiting for me to speak.

"Not much else happened. I left and continued with the mission."

Goose said, "Oh."

She put her full weight on her shovel and forced it deep into the sand.

"When he left us Children, I thought his ideas were stupid. He – " she laughed nervously, "was almost possessed by it, saying about how it was the legitimisation of soldiers of fortune, finally happening. He liked to be accepted, you see. Never got over the media scandal, and the drugs didn't help. He was so absorbed by Big Boss's ideals. It was like he'd joined a cult." She slammed the shovel down into the sand with force, head bowed over. "Then he left, and you killed him."

"I'm sorry."

"My revenge is bringing this place back to glory when you destroyed it. Now you're here in front of me, I can do better."

I knew she was absolutely right to hate me, but I found myself pleading with her. "You're an athlete too – a gymnast. He understood it – it was fair, we were both good sportsmen – "

"You think killing's a sport?"

I shut up and got back to digging.

 

\--

We broke for lunch after a couple of hours, the container half exposed. The back of the truck contained a large water butte – I filled up a bottle at the tap and sipped it as everyone else received their trays from the cooks, leaning against the side of the truck's cabin with a cigarette.

The others ate cheerfully, sitting in small groups, talking to one another. For the first time since I'd got here Goose had taken her eyes off me and was sitting with a willowy black woman with a shaven head, and I'd overheard enough of their conversation about the Russian chopper presence in the north to realise that I really should stop following Goose around if she was going to do the same for me. In the shade, I massaged my aching arms and stomach, feeling the smoke kick its way inside me.

"We've had great food since we possessed the facility," came a voice to my right.

"Master?"

He handed me a tray – the same as his own. Even in the hot air, it steamed.

"Why does everything I have to do with you end up being about either food or killing?" I asked him, picking up the fork. I wasn't able to identify any of the food on the plate, but I divided it mentally into Orange, Yellow, Green and Meat. I sliced off a sliver of the last. I paused. I put the fork back down onto the tray.

I couldn't make out Master's eyes from behind his sunglasses, but I assume he was rolling them as he took my tray and swapped it with his own. He'd been eating from it, so that meant it wasn't a double bluff. Unless he was taking some kind of –

"I know I can't prove anything, but you have my word I'm not taking some kind of antidote."

I sighed.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The food?"

"The meat."

"Oh," Master said. "Markhor."

"You mean –"

Master nodded.

"I'm really not that hungry," I said.

"In general?"

"In general. I told you, I just don't – like food any more."

Master adjusted the band of his sunglasses that ran over the top of his nose.

"Anything else you've stopped liking?"

"Master – "

"You remember the psych test I gave you?"

"Yeah, I do," I said, "you had me answer some stupid multiple-choice questions, watched a bunch of hidden camera footage with me, and then had Mentalist Moth read my mind and shout at me for filling in the questions wrong."

"You remember the results?"

"'Intuitive, adaptable and extremely resilient with good fighting spirit'."

"But also 'susceptible to powerful bad moods and fits of internal self-punishment'."

"'Although these will likely not affect his fighting ability or ability to follow orders'," I reminded him, flatly. "Why are you bringing this –"

"Moth mentioned to me that your mind felt delicate. I think his words were that it was in a delicate balance that could result in disaster."

"He's a surface reader, he's worthless for anything except fortune telling. He reads people and then just says back what he thinks they need to hear."

"He told me and not you. Isn't that relevant?"

He took a small forkful of the orange substance, and crunched on it.

"So you think that since I'm not eating, I'm crazy," I said.

Miller folded his arms. The sand reflected yellow light under his clean-shaven jaw, and as soon as I realised I was looking, I looked away from him. Goose had moved away from her friend and was talking to Charlie, although with a guardedness about her body language which made me think the conversation was probably about me.

"On the battlefield, many of the most stable men develop psychological fractures from combat stress," he said. "I've seen it happen to many people, and it's always a sad reality of combat. Even the Ancient Greeks wrote about it. Herodotus spoke of a soldier in the Battle of Marathon who became blind after witnessing the death of one of his fellow soldiers."

"You mean to tell me Big Boss only saw someone half die?" I said, not caring that it wasn't funny. "I don't know about you, but I want to get back to digging."

I flopped backwards. My head came back automatically, and in the distance I could see the hills frosted with white.

"We'd better get it out before the snow clouds come this way."

Master frowned, but didn't say anything –he looked at me for a second. I saw his eyes dart behind the black lenses, like fish in a dark tank. To oblige him, I gathered a forkful of orange and put it in my mouth.

"It's good," I said, although I couldn't really taste it. "Really kind of – spicy." I concentrated. It was. "What is it?"

Master smirked. "Peanut and apple."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

I managed to eat about half of the tray, concentrating on each new bite. The inside of my head spread out and strengthened, and I could tell the food was doing me good, but I couldn't take my eyes off Master, and he couldn't take his eyes off me. I'd hold the fork in my mouth for a while, and look at the swell of Master's chest underneath his uniform and imagine how much better it'd look after I put a bullet hole in it.


End file.
